In honor of its 75th anniversary, the Friends of the Princeton University Library has planned a series of year-round events that will serve as both a celebration and a fundraiser for the University.
The celebrations, which are free for all members, will include a series of workshops on the physical book, tours of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., libraries to view the Friends' collections and a dinner featuring Pulitzer Prizewinning poets Paul Muldoon and C.K. Lewis.
The group is in many ways "a combination of alumni and local Princeton residents who enjoy supporting the library," said Ben Primer, head of the Library's Special Collections department.
The Friends, which has a membership of about 600, hopes to attract new members and raise money for the library. Princeton lags behind many of its peers in the amount of money it spends on new acquisitions, said Robert Ruben '55, chair of the Friends.
"Princeton has been uncompetitive in the area of special collections for about 25 years," Ruben said. Funding for new acquisitions is divided among several departments, he added, which leaves Princeton behind institutions like Harvard, Yale, Duke, Emory and Rice.
Consequently, Princeton cannot afford to purchase many of the world's greatest treasures, Ruben said. One group of manuscripts alone can cost anywhere from $5 to $10 million — a price the department cannot pay.
"A number of years ago, we bought Fitzgerald's manuscripts," Primer said. "If they were on the market today, I suspect we couldn't even begin to afford them."
It is vital that Princeton's library be able to purchase items to enrich the intellectual life of the University, Ruben said.
"A library is a place where information is stored, preserved, and made available to scholars," he said. "It's the heart and soul of the place."
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